Auditory Imagery Loop

[song_of_thea]

To chance upon a melody in passing

Can be but a blessing,

So long as you passively listen

Moving on when the song has finished.

 

But an earworm can act with

The worst of intentions

Ringing in your ears constantly,

Your own dreadful clanging curse

 

Perhaps it began with the wrong band

Playing the wrong combination

Of chords or lifted samples

Or lyrics entered your ears

Like daggers, and you promptly tuned

All of it out, turned off

With the smash of a button

 

An open chord in a minor key

Brings throes of ecstasy when strummed by

Electric guitars proclaiming

Another has fallen! Savor this moment!

 

This becomes your own personal anthem

When you are fifteen.

Perhaps for just one summer,

You and your friends march to the beat

Of one frantic drummer

 

But those same notes in the waves of an 80’s keyboard,

Without the mournful minor ninth of the guitar,

Substituted with a synth playing a major second,

No tragic backstory,

Substituted with unrequited romance

That would be banned in the era of #Metoo

 

The warped sound at the hands of the wrong band

Now a toxic parody

Becomes thoroughly exhausting

Permeating darkest thoughts, made worse

By a wailing singer who shouts at you

Claiming you are cold, and that you shouldn’t

Say NO, lest you want to die alone

 

You think as they

Fall off the voice

Off the key

And thanks to too many drugs or cigarettes

(who knows?)

Off the breath,

“Then LET ME die alone!”

 

While the airwaves proclaim

“This is a hit!”

Those casual words and hammering keys

Plant seeds of doubt

Into your deepest thoughts

 

Yet more baggage for when you reach adulthood

And your exes call you cold or unloving

In the heat of a fight

Without context of that song

 

The casual plunged into the agony of

Disgust wondering,

What were the record execs smoking?

This is truly awful!

Yet as it weaves itself into your inner synapses,

That sound never leaves your head.

 

When it pursues you

Even after you run,

It begins to ache in your soul,

Its manifestations

Take on the macabre,

Whether by day or by night,

There is no solace

 

Your friends obsess

Even thirty years gone

Of crappy bands past and present

And yet to come

 

Still, you’re cornered

For your soul, for

It has come full circle

Eventually, all of the worst trends

Make their comeback

 

So take pause, friends

For one person’s pleasure

Can lead to another’s demise

Auditory Imagery Loops run endless

Inside one’s head

Never for better,

Always worse,

Sadly, there is no cure.